Transportable temporary homes with folding roof

ABSTRACT

The design of transitional housing for humanitarian emergencies is an important line of research in current architecture in the world. The response to an emergency, whether due to natural causes or irregular migratory movements, begins with provisory solutions, but as it continues over time, it is necessary to design temporary solutions that can house those affected until their definitive relocation is found. These homes must be able to be implemented in a short period of time, so the most appropriate solutions are prefabricated, light and transportable homes that require minimal work on site. In this sense, a type of modular and transportable housing will be analysed, made up of elements that can be stored compactly, assembled in the factory and transported complete to the place where they are needed. At your location they can be installed quickly and with the fewest possible number of operations. Finally, at the end of their period of use, they can be transferred back to the factory to be disassembled and stored while waiting to be reused again. The article develops a housing model with these characteristics. As part of a company-university collaboration agreement, the Emsamble company has built an experimental module similar to the one proposed, which has been subjected to various tests by the authors. The results obtained are provided and a critical review of the built prototype and the proposed lines of improvement is made.

KEYWORDS:

• Shelters
• temporary housing
• post-disaster housing
• transportable homes
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the company Emsamble for its important contribution with the design and construction of the prototype that has been installed in the Campus da Zapateira in A Coruña (Spain) described in section 4.1 and that has allowed carrying out the tests that have allowed validating its effectiveness. Also to Mr Joel Cotardo for his valuable collaboration in the development of the graphic models of the module.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to European regulations, for a lorry the maximum height is 4.00 m and the maximum width is 2.55 m. The load can protrude from the truck up to 15%, so the maximum width of the module could be 2.93 m.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness of the Kingdom of Spain [grant number BIA2016-79459-R]. This study is a part of the research project ‘Expandable and modular constructions for humanitarian disasters’.